mymodernmet.com: In the summer of 1997, a revolution rolled through the United States and Canada under a chorus of female voices. For years, the music industry had clung to an unspoken rule not rooted in data, but in prejudice, that no two women could play back-to-back on a lineup because it wasn’t “profitable.” That belief shaped radio playlists, tour bills, and who was allowed to take up space on stage.
4 comments:
Lilith Fair defines a festival that I believe we are missing in the current landscape of modern music. There are many different music festivals that take place all over the country yearly but the only ones broadcasted are those such as Coachella that host only more mainstream artists. What I particularly liked about Lilith Fair was both the idea of representation for different minorities as well as a multitude of different sounds coming together all in a singular festival. I’m always keen to find out how short of a time ago many of these momentous events marking women's space within different platforms took place. Sarah McLachlan started the trial run for her festival only 30 years ago. The majority of people who live in the United States are above the age of 39 meaning most people were alive when this festival was first created. The establishment of different women's festivals was not that long ago and I hope we are able to maintain and strengthen the message they fought so hard to protect.
I have never heard of the Lilith Fair before. It feels crazy that it didn’t last longer knowing it was at one point larger than Lollapalooza. I love this concept of combining a lot of different genres as well, challenging assumptions that all music by women sounds the same. I’m glad to live in a time where that judgment has dwindled quite a bit, not to say that there isn’t a lot of misogyny still present in the music industry, but overall, this is less aggressive of a theme now. I have seen many women perform live with all of her openers being women; it’s overall become a lot more normalized to see. I love learning about events like this, that were once the first of their kind, and such a vulnerable first step it was- but paved a way for so many other women to create and perform incredible work without fear of being too uninteresting for the audience.
I had never heard of Lilith Fair which is crazy given some of the headliners. The fact that it was only three years of festivals even though it seemed to be incredibly successful is interesting to me. I wonder what happened to make them stop organizing this festival. When people get threatened by women, it makes me think about what women could accomplish if they were not constantly terrified of the backlash. There were bomb threats over Planned Parenthood booths, a place that was founded and made for women’s health. I know that people associate Planned Parenthood with abortions and they have their own feelings about that, but Planned Parenthood does so much more for women’s health than just abortions. I am famous amongst my friends for not knowing names of bands/artists/actors, but I recognized most of the names in the lineup mentioned in this article. I would be interested in seeing if this festival gets a resurgence now that more people are learning about it.
Emma L
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